Re: My column about teachers quietly buying their own
classroom supplies despite all the grief we give them.

She writes: "Your article hit a soft spot with me. I estimate I spent about $800 each of the 26
years I was in a classroom. Over the
years I bought more than just supplies for students. My larger purchases
included: typewriter, ditto copy
machine, overhead projector, copier, classroom computer, file cabinets, storage
cabinets for supplies, bookcases and library books for my classroom. I'll never
forget a superintendent arguing during a nasty negotiations session that the
school board provided everything the teachers needed to teach. He stopped arguing when I told him my classroom world map was dated 1942 and our
science books were telling students that one day man would land on the
moon. The year was 1973!"

I write: Jean, teachers are society's unsung heroes and if
we had any sense we'd ...wait, we landed on the moon?

From: Don P.

Re: Ditto.

He writes: "I've been teaching for 26 years. Morale has
never been this low among the staff. The
demand to prove our worth as educators keeps growing but we are given less from
the state to do our jobs each year. It has reached the point where my
colleagues and I actively discourage our best and brightest students from going
to college to become teachers."

I write: Hard to blame you, Don. We say we want the best,
brightest teachers and yet we're doing everything we can to ensure the
opposite.

From: Acesrking2

Re: Ditto

He writes: "Mr. Heller, as the liberal progressive you are,
you completely gloss over AND ignore the real cause of children not being ready
to be educated. You, Mr. Heller, have failed to condemn the African American
community for producing 73 percent of unwed mothers; you fail to condemn the
Latino community for 58 percent of unwed mothers; you fail to condemn the
Caucasian community for 29 percent of unwed mothers. That is YOUR
responsibility to point out to these people that single parenthood leads to
poverty. But alas, Mr. Heller, you will not do this. It would be going against
the limited thinking of your base of influence. You would be also going against
the liberal progressive ideology that promotes sex at any age, with no
incidents of responsibility. When you decide to try and keep young people from
unwed pregnancies then I (will) know you really care about what you just wrote.
Anything else that you do is just pure demagoguery."

I write: Yes, we liberals just love promoting teen sex. As I
said at the last Liberal Progressive Ideology meeting, "Teenagers just aren't having
enough sex, people. There's gotta be a way to convince them to have more – y'know,
other than hormones. But what? Think, people, think!"

From: Ed K.

Re: My column saying fast food workers deserve higher
wages.

He writes: "If government or unions force wages to rise,
consumers will simply pay more for products or services. Eventually, the
workers will not have gained a thing."

I write: By your reasoning, Ed, we should pay people .10 an
hour, if not less. Then prices would be so low we'd all be rich. Yay!